After many years, my second cookbook, Big Vegan Flavor, is finally available for pre-order! It’s not your ordinary cookbook either. At 600 pages and with 150 recipes, it’s a comprehensive guide to mastering vegan cooking.
In this post:
1. About the book
2. How the book is structured
3. Why I wrote this cookbook
4. Frequently asked questions
5. Preorder bonus content!
About the book
Big Vegan Flavor is the distillation of everything that I knew about cooking excellent vegan food at home.
This book has been in the making for three and a half years and it is, hands down, the project I’ve worked the hardest on in my entire life. Even more than studying for the LSAT or the bar exam!
I had three main goals in putting this cookbook together.
First, I wanted to share a collection of diverse and flavor-rich recipes you could incorporate both into your weekly repertoire as well as save for special occasions.
Second, I didn’t want this to be an ordinary cookbook you’d flip through once or twice. I wanted it to be a resource you could consult for years to come. So I tried to pack as much useful information in there as possible (without going overboard—a tendency of mine!).
And third, I wanted to make sure the photos would get you excited about cooking vegan food!
How the Book is Structured
Part I: Fundamentals of Vegan Cooking
This is where your education in vegan cooking kicks off! While there are no recipes in Part I, it’s actually my favorite section of the book.
Here, you’ll learn the fundamentals of great cooking, practical tips that will make you feel more confident in the kitchen, and techniques for building big flavors and interesting textures using plant-based ingredients from spices and herbs to vinegars and mushrooms.
In short, this is where you’ll learn the principles of vegan cooking, allowing you to cook excellent plant-based meals even if you don’t have a recipe.
Part II: Building Blocks Recipes
If you’ve seen my meal prep videos on YouTube, you might be familiar with what I call “building blocks.” These are components like condiments, grains, proteins, and vegetables that you can mix and match to yield easy yet delicious weeknight meals.
There are ~50 high-impact condiment and flavor booster recipes that will make meal planning and prep actually exciting! In these chapters, you’ll find a mix of simpler staples like customizable tahini sauces and weeknight vegetables, but also unique must-have recipes, like my Life-Changing Homemade Chili Crisp and Sticky Coconut Milk–Braised Tofu.
At the end of this section, you’ll find a chart that shares how you can use these building blocks for weekly meal planning and meal prep.
Part III: “Wow Worthy” Recipes
The recipes in this section are worthy of special occasions, date nights, dinner parties, or any time you’re in the mood for a spectacular meal. From big personality salads and vegetable main courses to incredible dinners, brunches, and desserts, these recipes are the showstoppers that will blow away your family and friends.
Why I wrote this cookbook
I wrote this cookbook because it’s the resource I wish I had when I first went vegan.
My first year of being vegan, I cooked by subtraction. Since I could no longer eat cheese and meat, I simply cut them out of my diet and ate whatever was leftover. I simply didn’t have the tools or knowledge on how to make food taste great without being able to rely on things like chicken thighs and fish sauce and parmesan and sour cream.
So I ate a lot of boring, tasteless meals…that is, until my taste buds staged a revolt and demanded I learn how to cook better food.
Eventually, I’d find myself spending hours and then weeks and then months researching things like how to best replicate the creamy textures we so often crave and how to draw out the most flavor from simple plant-based ingredients like chickpeas and tofu.
I knew I wanted to share all the tips and tricks I had been learning so that other folks—whether newbie vegans or omnivores just interested in eating more plant-based food—would not have the same experience I did.
Life, after all, is too short to regularly endure the experience of mediocre food.
Of course, I’ve been sharing this kind of content on my YouTube channel and blog for several years. But, with Big Vegan Flavor, all of this information has now been codified into one big, beautiful cookbook.
With all of the educational content in the book plus 150 recipes featuring tons of little tips, my hope is that this book will empower you to feel confident in the plant-based kitchen, whether or not you have a recipe in front of you.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many recipes are there? Are the recipes new?
There are 150 recipes in this book, and the vast majority of them are brand new!
How much did you cook for this cookbook?
Making this book involved over 2,000 recipe tests (probably close to 2,500, but I eventually lost count). Some recipes were tested 10 or even 20 times.
As with my approach to sharing recipes online, the recipes in this book were meticulously tested. And there was a high bar that recipes needed to meet in order to get accepted.
Nothing made it into the book unless it got an enthusiastic thumbs up from me, my in-person recipe tester Hannah, and my remote recipe testers.
I also ended up photographing most of the dishes twice, some even three or four times until I got exactly what I was looking for.
So, yeah, A LOT of cooking happened to make this book a reality.
What inspired the recipes?
I love exploring different cuisines and new ingredients. Whether it’s in the form of a simple condiment (like the Yemeni-inspired Spicy Mint & Cilantro Sauce) or in a full-fledged meal (like the Malaysian Curry Noodle Soup), global flavors have greatly influenced the recipes in this book.
There are also a few classic comfort foods remixed, like the Sexy Skillet Lasagna and Adult Grilled Cheese.
Do the recipes use imperial or metric measurements?
Each recipe in the book contains both imperial and metric measurements, yay!
Are there any cool features in the book?
Yes! Every recipe contains ingredient notes and tips that will help you nail the recipe and make substitutions when needed. For smaller items—like condiments, proteins, vegetables, and grains—there are suggestions for turning them into main meals.
Many recipes also include “easy variations” so you can customize a recipe based on your preferences, the seasons, or what you have on hand. For recipes that are more elaborate or have multiple components, there are “make ahead” suggestions for what can be prepped ahead of time.
And each recipe indicates whether it’s gluten-free, nut-free, and/or soy-free, or has the option to make it allergen-friendly. Where a substitution won’t significantly interfere with the outcome, I’ve suggested specific substitutes.
Additionally, there is a link inside the book that will take you to a bank of free video content! These videos break down techniques used throughout the book (e.g., how to toast spices, how to slice fennel, etc.).
Did you take all the photos?
Yes, I styled and photographed all the photos in the book (except for the photos of me, which an amazing professional photographer took). I ended up photographing most of the dishes twice, some even three or four times until I got exactly what I was looking for.
Why do you care about pre-orders?
Preordering a book before its official publication date is so critical to the success of the book as a whole and determines many things, including:
(1) Which bookstores will carry the book and how many copies they’ll order;
(2) Whether big box stores will carry the book online only or also in stores (lots of preorders >> stores are more likely to stock the book in stores);
(3) Whether respected media outlets will cover the book (it’s an uphill battle to get mainstream attention on vegan cooking!)
Preordering helps to create buzz and momentum, showing retailers and the media that there is significant interest in the book. This can lead to better placement in stores and more media coverage, which are crucial for a successful launch.
Do I get anything if I pre-order the book before it’s officially published?
100% YES! As a thank you to everyone who preorders the book before it’s published, I’m sharing four pieces of incredible bonus content! You won’t find this content anywhere else.
(1) Indian-Inspired Dinner Party Menu: Enjoy a gourmet, 7-course dinner party menu featuring my Vegan Butter Chicken recipe. Complete with a timeline on what to prep ahead of time.
(2) Indian Spice Starter Kit: Master Indian cooking with this guide to Indian spices. You’ll learn which spices you need and how to use them.
(3) Ultimate Vegan Grocery List: My complete grocery list for cooking big flavor vegan food, plus my favorite products from Trader Joes, Costco, and H Mart.
(4) Vegan Dinner Party Guide: Become the host or hostess with the mostess with this comprehensive guide to vegan entertaining and throwing dinner parties.
Where can I preorder the book?
For both U.S. and international folks, I’ve included lots of links on this page where you can preorder the book.
If you live in the U.S., you can preorder Big Vegan Flavor wherever books are sold, including by calling your local bookstore and asking them to preorder it for you!
If you live outside of the U.S., visiting the Amazon homepage of your home country is often a reliable way to preorder the book.
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Why pre-ordering matters + bonus content if you do!
My book will be officially published on September 3rd, 2024! But you can pre-order it now, and I would be so grateful if you did.
I know folks often wonder, “Why should I order a book when it’s not out yet?” or “I’ll just wait until Christmas to order the book.”
So let me share an industry secret.
Preordering a book before its official publication date is so critical to the success of the book as a whole. The strength of preorders determines so many important things, including:
(1) which bookstores will carry the book and how many copies they’ll order;
(2) whether big box stores will carry the book online only or also in stores (lots of preorders >> stores are more likely to stock the book in stores);
(3) whether respected media outlets will cover the book (it’s an uphill battle to get mainstream attention on vegan cooking!)
As a thank you to everyone who preorders the book before it’s published, I’m sharing some four pieces of incredible bonus content.
Pre-Order Bonus Freebies
- Indian-Inspired Dinner Party Menu. Enjoy a gourmet, 7-course dinner party menu featuring my Vegan Butter Chicken recipe. Complete with a timeline on what to prep ahead of time.
- Indian Spice Starter Kit. Master Indian cooking with this guide to Indian spices. You’ll learn which spices you need and how to use them.
- Ultimate Vegan Grocery List. My complete grocery list for cooking big flavor vegan food, plus my favorite products from Trader Joes, Costco, and H Mart.
- Vegan Dinner Party Guide. Become the hostess with the mostess with this comprehensive guide to vegan entertaining and throwing dinner parties.
Important Note: If you’ve already pre-ordered Big Vegan Flavor, you can access the bonus content by following the instructions at this page.
This is available to EVERYONE who pre-orders from any location or website anytime before September 3, 2024, including international folks.
Thank You!
To everyone who has already pre-ordered Big Vegan Flavor, THANK YOU so very much! You’ve enabled me to achieve a lifelong dream, and for that, I am forever grateful. I cannot wait for this book to be in your hands!
